Saturday, July 9, 2011

So, this is for all the people that live in Colorado. Black Knight 2, located at Bowles and Kipling (same shopping center as Harbor Freight and Jumpstreet) is hosting a terrain building/painting party. This is intended to help bolster the available terrain there at the store, and to increase the amount of terrain needed for The Feast of Blades tournament that they will be holding later in the month. They are gonna supply some foam and paints, but bring anything you would like to make. You can even bring anything that would ork for terrain (old washed cans, packaging foam, etc) will work great. Remember that anything built will be staying in the store for the gaming community to use. So, remember to stop buy and build some terrain, check out the store and chat with the knowledgable employees and maybe buy something. They have a pretty good inventory of 40k stuff and will be getting more soon. PLEASE come by and support your local gaming store!! The Forgotten Chapter will hopefully be stopping by too and may even get a game in while we are there.

Friday, July 8, 2011

For those of you who have enjoyed the perks of this little baby.....then you'll understand where I'm coming from. I LOVE this rule.......especially when your playing against the "Hammer of the Emperor"........damn those guardsmen..........and they have "several" tanks just lined up along the back side of the board, and you finally get close enough to play "whack-a-mole"!!!

Now this rule can be a bit tricky, but if pulled off, you could have the potential to wipe that smirk off your opponents face with one swift move.

Lets just use a standard Assault Marine Squad as the guinea pig for this one. Starting off with the full 10, after carefully maneuvering yourself across the board, you get close enough to launch an assault. And if you are close enough to have the 6" charge with every model, you can, with some careful placing of your models, try to take down more than one unit. Some Pros......you can tie up more than 1 squad of your enemies, preventing them from doing damage somewhere else. Another is just obvious, killing off more than 1 unit in one turn. Futher making you opponent change their game plan......unless you have 180 greenskin on the board. A BIG con.....and I mean risky, spreading yourself out too thin to tackle the objective at hand. If you throw 10 assault marines into 2 or more units of basic Tyranid gants.........probably not gonna be able to withstand the kickback.

So this move can be risky, but thats the kinda game I personally like to play. To give the perfect example of how this can be an amazing tactic......for my Black Templars, I run a 10 man Assault squad, all with melta bombs, accompanied by my Marshal..........lol, nasty I know. Given the opportunity that I got close enough, I leaped over some cover, my Marshal breaking off the group in the process. And low and behold what lies within only a few inches of all my units. A non-moving Manticore, an immobilised Vindicator, and a 6 man Imperial Guard Command Squad. Now given what we just talked about..........my Marshal breaks off and wipes out the command squad, and I split the attacks of my assault squad, onto the 2 tanks. 5 melta bombs each, auto hit, you can imagine the rest.

Now in this instance, it worked to perfection. But I can tell you from experience......it is VERY risky. Not throwing enough attacks at one particular unit, not having the numbers to survive the defenders reactions. Its a toss up for most players.

So for those of you who live on the "edge", or for those of you with more models than you can count on everyones fingers and toes..........go for it! But if your the new Grey Knights......and you have a small handful of units, this might be something worth thinking about. But either way......just remember that they are just models. You can pick them back up after they die. Its a game, and its suppose to be fun.

So, after converting two more members of The Forgotten Chapter to loyal supporters of our new favorite store (which is Black Knight 2 in Littleton, CO), one chapter member said something that stuck with me. He said that the new place was awesome and that he would totally buy a lot of stuff from there, but he would still try to buy specific things online. I soon had an epiphany ( or the hamster fell off the wheel in my brain) why do we love checking out new stores but still buy stuff online? No great fasting or mythical search across frozen landscapes and over open deserts was needed, as the answer to my question soon came to me in multiple parts. It just so happens that we all like to buy from stores and online, so which one is better? Are there certain things that are better to get in the store than online? Does the difference in price really matter?

Monday, July 4, 2011

So, on a balmy Sunday afternoon, the day before Independance Day, I found myself in the new Black Knight Games 2 store in Littleton, CO. The store has both tabletop and video game systems and accessories. The shelves still have holes that will definitley get filled, and the green walls will make sure that you dont fall asleep while your opponent takes his sweet time deploying (Just like I am taking my sweet time writing an article on deployment). The "atmosphere" in the store is a good one, and it feels like you can come in there and get a game in without having the store "mosquitos" walk around and criticize everything you do, while failing to understand the importance of deodorant in modern society. The staff seems very nice, and they are willing to bring in ANY items that you want or would like to see. I think that one of the biggest advantages to being an up and coming store is that you have the ability to ask your new customers what they want to see and match your inventory to the needs of your customers. Established stores already have money vested in items on their shelves, and have to maintain certain items until their stock is cleared, which can take a while. New stores have the money, room, and ability to tailor their inventory almost immediatley to the demographic, so dont be afraid to tell the guys at your new store what you want to see, cause it may just come true if enough people agree with your requests.